The number one question I am asked when folks find out I am sugar-free is if my kids are sugar-free too.

Chip is only 9 months old so he is 100% sugar-free. Sausage is 2 1/4 years old, so she is the ‘mostly’. My second most-asked question is what on earth I give her to eat if she’s sugar-free, like she must live on gruel or something.

Having a mostly sugar-free toddler isn’t too hard when they are used to eating this way. I imagine that transitioning a toddler off large amounts of the white stuff wouldn’t be much fun! I feel exhausted just thinking about it…

Sausage is a pretty good eater (for now). She’s not too fussy, eats most fruit and vegetables, and generally eats what we eat – although she draws the line at Ryvita (yuck!), vegemite (I DON’T like it!) and lettuce (that’s digusting!).

She does however, have a massive sweet tooth, especially for chocolate. Her diet isn’t 100% sugar-free, but then it’s not my intention for it to be. I believe in taking an 80:20% approach to what my kids eat. I think forbidding my kids to eat any sweets, cake etc only serves to increase its desirability, which can lead to bizarre behaviour and attitudes towards food. My mother once told me about some children she knew who were never allowed any sweets at all. They got into serious trouble for shoplifting their ‘forbidden fruit’. I also have a friend who grew up without being allowed to eat anything ‘bad’ – he was always sent to parties with a box of his permitted food – and he went crazy when he finally left home for university. He had an enormous stash of chocolate at all times, and slept with several cases of cola under his bed! His unhealthy relationship with sweet stuff continues to this day.

So Sausage does get some sugary stuff during her week. It’s a lot less than the average child I think, and I think it’s easiest just to tell you what she might eat in a ‘typical’ day here in Tawhero.

Breakfast: She eats weetbix or cornflakes, sometimes with a bit of fruit on top (like the feijoas we have in abundance right now). I can’t get her to eat porridge but you can be sure we’re working on this. Pretty much any other cereal here in NZ is riddled with sugar. Some cereals can be 30-40% sugar and yet are promoted as being healthy such as Nutrigrain or Sultana Bran. And most cereals peddled at children, such as ‘Honey Puffs, Cocoa Pops, and Frosties’ are incredibly sugary.

Occasionally I make her scrambled eggs or pancakes for breakfast. She likes pancakes just with butter.

Just FYI, I don’t limit fruit. She’s a toddler and has more energy in her little finger than I have in my whole body.

Morning Tea: Morning teas can be my trickiest meals in terms of curbing her sugar intake. We attend two play groups that provide morning tea, and they always, always, always include sugary biscuits/cookies. They are not the worst offenders in the biscuit world (i.e. they tend to be cream wafers or vanilla wine biscuits) but they seem to be a staple at play groups, along with providing fresh fruit. One group sometimes provides a diluted raro drink (a powdered sugar drink) which I ignore and give her water (Sausage rarely has juice, and when she does it is very diluted. She’s never had soft drink. She is fine with drinking water or milk). I realise of course that I could forbid her to eat the biscuits, but one during the day isn’t going to hurt when they are often the only sugary things she eats that day. I could even bring her own morning tea, but I don’t for the above reasons. I’ve have spoken to the play group organisers but it falls on deaf ears.

Don’t get me started on what adults are given to eat at play groups. I have NEVER been offered anything savoury. It’s always chocolate biscuits (in front of the children too!). Fortunately I seldom need a snack in the mornings otherwise I’d go home with a grumbly tummy.

If we are at home, or at Playcentre where we bring our own morning tea, she eats things like boiled eggs, crackers (home made), cheese, hummus, vege sticks, fresh fruit, yoghurt*, sandwiches, cucumber and tomato slices, tuna, chicken or some sugar free baking if I’ve been particularly organised.

* I haven’t been able to convince Sausage that unsweetened yoghurt is delicious, so I sneak it in to her commercially prepared sweetened fruit yoghurt at a 50:50 ratio. I will be gradually increasing the unsweetened ration, mwahaha!

If we are out and about and are not organised we do occasionally give Sausage biscuits (just keeping it real). Griffin’s do a fruit digestive that is surprisingly low in sugar. They are the best of the bunch if you are in a pinch.

Lunch: Sausage is addicted to peanut butter sandwiches (home made, preservative-free bread, for those who have asked). We use Pic’s 100% peanut brand, which is in my opinion, the best ever. I will eventually have to wean her off onto other spreads as many schools forbid PB due to increasing numbers of kids with deathly peanut allergies in attendance. Anyway, lunch is often a PB sandwich, with vege sticks, cheese, fruit or whatever else is to hand.

Afternoon tea: Usually similar to morning tea.

Dinner: Sausage eats what we eat, unless it’s a highly spicy curry.

Sausage does get the occasional sugary treat such as ice cream or chocolate from us and her grandparents, and I allow her to eat what she wants at birthday parties – but she isn’t really on the party circuit like older kids can be. She is always my litmus test for any sugar-free concoction I make, as if it pleases her, it is generally a hit with everyone.

Giving Up Sugar seems to be more popular than ever, despite me deciding to quit it a few months back. So I thought, why not resurrect it now I have a bit more space in my ol’ brain again.

I fell off the sugar wagon while pregnant with kid no 2 (I just cannot win against those pregnancy cravings), but have been sugar-free since January 1st. Getting back on the wagon was really easy and I once again am reaping the benefits of a sugar-free life:

Here’s my review of the sugar-free eating plan that is Trim Healthy Mama which first appeared in Tots in Tawhero back in February.

As a rule I try to start new diets or eating plans when my social calendar isn’t filled with temptation in the form of birthday cake. Now I have Sausage and D’s birthdays out of the way I have started THM with a vengeance. THM has been feeling a bit like my nemesis for the past year and a half since I first purchased the book. I tried and failed several times to eat the THM way while I was pregnant, but my cravings were too strong and I think I just wasn’t in the right headspace for it.

I have struggled with my weight for most of my adult life. After going sugar-free I lost quite a bit of weight, only to gain some back while pregnant with Sausage. I was just starting to loose some of it again by eating sugar-free and running when I became pregnant with Chip. And then after Chip was born I put on even more weight(!) due to stress-eating when things were bad with his reflux. It’s time for it to come off again. I am on board with THM now and raring to go. As of Monday, my two month THM trial has begun!

THM is an insanely popular book in Christian circles and seems to be a successful way of eating for many, many people. In a nutshell, THM is a carb-controlled eating plan that emphasises ditching sugar and most carbs, and embracing healthy fats and whole foods (as such, it is not a huge change to how I eat anyway). If you want to make the most of the recipes in the tome-like book, it does require some expensive and hard-to-find-in-New-Zealand ingredients – but the ‘plan’ can be followed without it.

I don’t want to go into the THM way of eating because it feels disrespectful to the authors to give away their trade secrets. I’m going to encourage you to buy the book instead. The authors do a great job of explaining how tweaking what you eat in combination can make a difference to whether you burn fat or store it, and these ladies have really done their research. Let me just say that THM makes good sense to me and does not involve complicated food restrictions or calorie-counting. THM is not a ‘diet’. I can eat as much as I like. I just need to be careful about what I eat in combination and when.

I’ve been a THM Facebook member for several months now, and hardly a day goes by without someone posting their weight loss or improved health success story. Many members have posted about how GOOD and how ENERGETIC they feel on the THM way of eating, and that’s why I have been desperate to give it a go. I don’t know about you, but energy is in short supply with the adults in our household.

What I like about the book:

It’s an entertaining, easy read. The authors are two Kiwi lasses (hooray!) now living in America. who have been on a healthy-eating journey for a long time. Their book is largely written as a conversation between the two of them and their banter is often laugh-out-loud funny. They are great at breaking down the nuts and bolts of nutrition,andmaking the science behind their plan accessible to people like me. Because generally when it comes to food science, this is me:

Brownie points to anyone who can tell me what movie I’m referencing…

The book ishuge. The authors go into a lot of detail, and I said earlier, they back up what they are saying with research. Like actual peer-reviewed research. Not just anecdotal evidence sourced off Dr Google. Plus I reckon the vastness of the book makes it seem like value for money.

The plan is holistic. Pearl and Serene don’t just cover food. They look at the impact what you eat has on your hormones, your sex life, your will power to exercise, whether you are pregnant or breastfeeding, weight maintenance and more.

They recognise that approaches to nutrition differ. They don’t expect anyone to suddenly change a life time of habits and favourite foods overnight. They know that some people find eating a healthy diet and making food from scratch easy, while others rely heavily on convenience food to make it through the day in one piece. The sisters themselves are like this – one is a purist and the other likes to cut corners, so you will often find two versions of a recipe for whatever camp you fall into.

They have lots of recipes for you to try. I hate how some ‘diet’ books are all like‘check me out, this is how you should be eating’ and then only give you a handful of recipes that will actually work with it. THM is half eating-plan stuff and half recipe book.

You can have dessert. For breakfast even. It just needs to be made without refined sugar or loaded with carbs. They have a considerable number of dessert and treat recipes which won’t make you pile on the weight. The THM desserts aren’t too different from the way I’ve been eating since quitting sugar back in 2012.

There is a huge internet community out there for support and encouragement. And I mean huge. The main THM facebook group (there are many, many THM groups) has over 84,000 people in it. The New Zealand THM facebook group has over 800. The authors now have an active website and YouTube channel so you can keep up to date and keep motivated.

What I don’t like about the book:

It’s written for an American audienceso some of the ingredients are hard or impossible to find here. Some of the ingredients needed to fully make use of the recipes I have had to source from overseas, which is something I don’t generally like to do as buying locally is important to me. However, as I mentioned previously, it is possible to do THM without the fancy ingredients and there is even a Facebook group for people who do this.

I think it’s hard to do THM cheaply. You can’t be vegetarian or eat meat sparingly and do THM. THM meals require some protein source. However, I do think that once you are ‘on plan’ and your body is fuelling properly, you probably find you eat less. Cutting out junk food and lots of carby foods also means there should be more wiggle room in the food budget for protein.

It’s written for the American palate. I’ve tried several of the recipes only to find I didn’t like them, which is disappointing when factoring in the effort taken to source some of the ingredients. I’m not hugely into creamy, cheesy dishes which some recipes rely heavily on. However, there are still a ton of their recipes I haven’t tried so I will be persevering. There are also plenty of bloggers who follow THM and are out there creating THM recipes – so many that I could probably try a different THM recipe at each meal for several years.

The dessert/treat recipes rely on sweeteners like Erythritol and Steviaand use other exotic ingredients like almond flour. I feel uneasy about using alternative sweeteners (I still use them instead of sugar!), but that’s just me. These ladies have actually done research on them and I haven’t. I want to get to the point where I don’t feel the need for that stuff – which is (mostly) possible when you’ve been off sugar for long enough. I’d like to get a few crowd-pleasing treat and dessert recipes under my belt for special occasions and to tackle cravings, but I’ll mostly be sticking to a piece of fruit if I feel the need for dessert. A criticism I have of low-carb dessert recipes (not just THM) is that they tend to use large quantities of exotic flours like almond. I would not sit down and eat three cups of almonds, so using three cups of almond flour in a recipe doesn’t feel very ‘whole foods’ to me. Again, these are just my thoughts and I have done zero research on it!

At two months in, I can say that it works. I’ve dropped a dress size and have lost weight in areas that I don’t usually lose weight in, like my arms. The food is pretty good and I don’t feel deprived at all.